Playstation 3 Secrets Revealed

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dipdude

Forerunner
Playstation 3 Secrets Revealed

The first people to have had a look at the new Playstation 3 in action and that can comment on their experience, have spoken and they claim that quality is not that of the Killzone video but is certainly of the same level as the MGS 4 movie recently shown. We are warned however that very few developers will be able to reach MGS4 levels and even they will have to wait some time before they are familiar enough with the machine to reach that kind of visual excellence.

Now that most developers have received their final PS3 development kits, website Kikizo has managed to sneak into some of them and offer us a peek at the machine that will challenge XBox 360 for next-generation supremacy. The account provided by the people that tried the new Playstation games is, unfortunately, a very vague one and provides basic information which most of us suspected but it does offer some insight and a straightforward, if diplomatic, comparison of the two new systems by a developer.

So we are told not to expect visuals of the same quality as the Killzone video showcased at last year's E3 but that the titles witnessed by the Kikizo journalist, are truly worthy of the next-gen tag.
In a diplomatic comparison of the two next-generation consoles, the Kikizo source states: ...the Xbox 360 and PS3 are same-generation machines. One doesn't have additional effects over the other - 360 can do the same effects, just not as many of them simultaneously and with less geometry [because of the speed difference], but memory bottlenecks can kill part of the PS3 speed advantage anyway... the overall visual difference it makes will depend a lot on the developer's skill, and how much time and money the publisher spends on a game. So Sony's console won't have extra tricks up its sleeve it will just be able to do more of them at the same time.

Since the versions of the games witnessed by the journalists are not final we are told that some improvements are expected especially since no Blu-Ray drives or controllers were included in the SDKs used. This latter fact also suggests that there may be some basis to the rumors of a possible failure by Sony to launch its new console this spring.

Whatever changes are made to the hardware however, we are told that Sony will not be able to meet its initial target of 1080p Full HD that it had originally set and will instead deliver 720p and will upscale it or allow the new TVs to do so. This, apparently, will save CPU cycles and will save gamers from the dreaded loss of frame rate.

So when will we get to play it? Kikizo's source claims: We think that in Japan it will most likely release during Summer, Q4 in the US, and Europe in Winter or Spring 2007 - these are our internal projections.

So there you have it PS3 will probably be delayed in the U.S. while the experience has left Kikizo staff with a feeling of disappointment since the PS3 is unlikely to reach the level of visual quality suggested by E3 2005. Still expect PS3 titles to continually improve as developers become more familiar with the hardware and hopefully, as Sony begins to provide them with actual consoles.
 
Chaos said:
LOL there you go... all the initial Sony FUD falling apart... Just like I said ages back ;)
It's a given when phony's involved :D
No 1080p, no killzone level graphics, and i am sure the initial games will be on dvd9.
 
it'll take time for the developers to harness the ps3. looks at some of the games released on the ps2 now to some of the launch titles. There's a generations gap.
 
Once the Developers get to know the hardware properly. I think we can expect the Killzone Vid quality. I mean Look how Black is on a outdated machine. It still looks like a Nex gen game.
 
Nothing new, same thing happened when the PS2's emotion engine was supposed to "render your dreams".

PC's became the first to truly reach nex-gen afterall without warming up the hype-machine 12 months prematurely. Infact without any hype at all.
While the X360's best looking game so far is the 2 year old Farcry.
 
It'll take time but it'll reach there. its not like it can't. Ps3 is packing gfx two times the power of capabilities of 6800u, its all upto the developers and their skills. Its much harder than PC.
 
params7 said:
It'll take time but it'll reach there. its not like it can't. Ps3 is packing gfx two times the power of capabilities of 6800u, its all upto the developers and their skills. Its much harder than PC.
Even with that much power its only as fast as the 7800gtx 512 on the PC and i really dont think it'll be able to achieve the cg quality of the killzone video in real time. The killzone video was just a showcase and it will remain so...... it might be possible with the ps4 though :P But as games progress so does Cg ;)
 
I would like to know why kickass graphics can't be developed for the consoles? Is it because they're too difficult to develop for? I used to think that since there are no variables in consoles, games would be able to utilise them 100%, and games would be totally rocking!
 
Blade_Runner said:
Even with that much power its only as fast as the 7800gtx 512 on the PC and i really dont think it'll be able to achieve the cg quality of the killzone video in real time. The killzone video was just a showcase and it will remain so...... it might be possible with the ps4 though :P But as games progress so does Cg ;)

Yeah well, consoles will always lose in that part. nothing is perfect. I'm not worried though, if Ps2 can still put up with Re4 and Black, Ps3 is going to be a monster if everything goes right.
 
Thing is, Graphics are limited on Consoles.

PC's have constant upgrades in Gfx Cards, proccessors, blah blah, while Consoles, remain the same for 2 - 3 years.

Thats the problem.

The PS3, has capabilities of the 6800u, and itll be releasing next year. When DX10, and the 8800's and x2800's will be here. And ofcourse, the 8800's and alike, will be able to do better gfx's than the 6800u on the ps3. Right?
 
Blade_Runner said:
Even with that much power its only as fast as the 7800gtx 512 on the PC and i really dont think it'll be able to achieve the cg quality of the killzone video in real time. The killzone video was just a showcase and it will remain so...... it might be possible with the ps4 though :P But as games progress so does Cg ;)
It'll be slower than a GTX 512MB cos first of all it has just 256MB of 128bit video memory and secondly, the memory is clocked only at around 700MHz giving a measly bandwidth of 22GB/s. Unlike the X360 which has a zero latency on chip cache of 10MB, the video chip on the PS3 doesn't have that luxury. I doubt if it'll have better capabilities than say a 7800GS considering the bandwidth limitations.
 
1.
params7 said:
Ps3 is packing gfx two times the power of capabilities of 6800u...

this was repeated by goldenfrag...

2.
Blade_Runner said:
Even with that much power its only as fast as the 7800gtx 512...

more or less Chaos said the same thing ....

How do you ppl say this? On what basis do you comare PC and the Console???

oops i switched the IDs its params who said the first and blade the second.... hehe sorry :)
 
unlucky_devil said:
1.
this was repeated by goldenfrag...

2.
more or less Chaos said the same thing ....

How do you ppl say this? On what basis do you comare PC and the Console???
Thats cuz its really the same gpu :P The rsx is based off the g70 :)
 
I still wonder - with all that vector calculating abilities, why did they put in so little RAM? Sometimes I wonder if Sony might all of a sudden say - "Hah! We tricked you all! We are going to use 1 GB RAM instead!"
 
ok... See first of all you are NOT supposed to compare a console and a PC. That would be totally wrong.... for the reason that the architecture of a PC is totally different from a Console.

You guys might be knowing this yourselves, but let me just inform those who don't.

I had posted this info before but due to the arguement over PC games and Console games the thread was cleaned up. So i'm posting it again here...

If you want real in-depth treatment then you would have to go through these URLS

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/ps2vspc.ars/1

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/ee.ars/1

http://arstechnica.com/cpu/1q99/playstation2-gfx.html

If this seems a bore...a very light one by me :)

Some of the most important being the Cache memory design, Bandwidth etc

The cache is divided into instruction + data. In the PC the data is more or less static when compared to the instructions (think about microsoft word changing the font, size etc basically formatting a paragraph) - this design because a PC is a general purpose machine and not for gaming or anything else. Just that it can be 'Modded' that way.

But for media processing its abolutely different, infact the other way around. lets say you are calculating the transform or probabaly running some very very intensive matrix calculations on a say 100x100 matrix, like Gaussian stuff etc.... then you have static code and your data is very very dynamic... keeps flowing all the time... This is the base of how the PS2 cache is designed...
why consoles need so little memory (VRAM) while PCs need a compartively huge one?

There is huge difference in the bandwidth. The PC has very thin pipelines compared the ones in PS2.

Since pipelines are small in PC and the amount of information is huge you need a kind of repository.... so that you can feed the machine with the data. So this is why PCs need huge memory and Consoles dont. (Cos data in console can be transferred with ease through the pipelines - huge bandwidth) for an awesome eg go through the 2nd page of 1st URL.

The processors are also custom made for media processing...i dont wanna bore you with VLIW,SIMD intruction decoding etc you can check that out your selves in the 2nd URL

You basically cant sum up the graphic capablities of PS3 just because its based on g70
and the 22Gb/sec bandwidth i think is wrong...cos these are the specs of PS2

Graphics Synthesizer Features and General Specifications of PS2
GS Core Parallel Rendering Processor with embedded DRAM
Clock Frequency 150 MHz
No. of Pixel Engines 16 (in Parallel)
Embedded DRAM 4 MB of multi-port DRAM (Synced at 150MHz)
Total Memory Bandwidth 48 Giga Bytes per Second

Combined Internal
Data Bus bandwidth 2560 bit
Read 1024 bit
Write 1024 bit
Texture 512 bit
Display Color Depth 32 bit (RGBA: 8 bits each)
Z Buffering 32 bit
Rendering Functions Texture Mapping, Bump Mapping
Fogging, Alpha Blending
Bi- and Tri-Linear Filtering
MIPMAP, Anti-aliasing
Multi-pass Rendering
Rendering Performance
Pixel Fill Rate 2.4 Giga Pixel per Second
(with Z buffer and Alphablend enabled)
1.2 Giga Pixel per Second
(with Z buffer, Alpha and Texture)
Particle Drawing Rate 150 Million /sec
Polygon Drawing Rate 75 Million /sec (small polygon)
50 Million /sec (48 Pixel quad with Z and A)
30 Million /sec (50 Pixel triangle with Z and A)
25 Million /sec (48 Pixel quad with Z, A and T)
Sprite Drawing Rate 18.75 Million (8 x 8 Pixels)
 
^^All those figures are bullshit... 2.4 Gigapixel LOL Trilinear filtering... mipmapping anti aliasing... are you nuts.... The PS2 graphics processor can do none of those :P.
 
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